Park guests wear 3-D glasses (Carnival Games Goggles) aboard spinning vehicles that travel through virtual environments based on classic carnival midway games.[8][9] Ride vehicles seat up to eight in four back-to-back pairs. Small children are also able to ride on an adult's lap if they are facing forward with their legs securely underneath the safety bar.

Each guest's score is recorded by an onboard display screen as points are acquired with individual toy cannons firing simulated projectiles at virtual targets. Toy Story characters including Woody, Hamm, Buzz Lightyear, Rex and Trixie appear during the attraction's different games.

Similar technology has been used in Disney attractions such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold at DisneyQuest and several Buzz Lightyear attractions. According to Disney, it is the first attraction created simultaneously by Walt Disney Imagineering for two theme parks.[10]

The line at both parks features a large Mr. Potato HeadAudio-Animatronics figure that interacts with guests through pre-recorded snippets of dialogue performed by comedian Don Rickles, who voiced the character in the Toy Story films. The sophisticated figure identifies people in the audience, sings and tells jokes.

January 1, 2010: Single Rider line is removed at Disney California Adventure.

May 21, 2010: Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop is replaced by Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts to promote the release of Toy Story 3.

July 9, 2012: Toy Story Midway Mania officially opens at Tokyo DisneySea along with the new Toyville Trolley Park.

September 15, 2014: Rumors begin circulating that a third track will be added to the Hollywood Studios ride as a FastPass+ track. This will add more capacity to the ride making the lines move a lot faster.

March 5, 2015: Rumors are confirmed that a third track will be added to the Hollywood Studios installment to add more capacity to the popular attraction. The rumors come after many months of suspicious activity reported at the nearby Soundstage 1.[12]

Toy Story Midway Mania! is one of the most technologically sophisticated attractions yet developed by Walt Disney Imagineering, costing an estimated $80 million to design and build.[8] It marks the company's first use of industrial ethernet for a ride's control system.[13] Many of the parts for the attraction's control system came from two of Disney's corporate sponsors, Siemens AG and Hewlett-Packard.[13]

The control system is divided into three components: one for the ride vehicles, one for the games and one more for the attraction's special effects.[13]Programmable logic controllers in the vehicles alert the control system wirelessly via ProfiNET RT to the vehicle's speed and location. The central controller then sends its instructions back to the vehicles using a hard-wired network within the track. The one-way communications flow adds a factor of safety, even though the wireless network is protected against outside interference, such as a denial-of-service attack.[13]

The attraction features more than 150 PCs, which includes one HPWindows XP PC for each of Midway Mania's 56 game screens, as well as others that control the special effects at each game.[13] At the game screens, two tracking systems provide the game control system with the vehicle's exact location, making sure that gameplay is not affected by even minor differences in vehicle position. According to Jody Gerstner, executive director of show and ride controls, "The game doesn’t care if the car parks in the same spot every time. It just needs to know where each car has actually parked, and it can compensate."[13] Additional sensors in the spring-action shooter provide information on its orientation, which is fine-tuned using data on the position of the ride vehicle at the screen and the rotation of the seats on the vehicle base.[13]

All three sub-systems work together to handle any contingency. For example, if a delay or other vehicle stoppage is detected (such as might occur if the loading and unloading of the ride vehicles is taking longer than expected), the control system can command the affected game screens to launch a non-scoring practice round, so that guests may continue to shoot targets while they wait. Similarly, it can instruct the show control system to play an audio spiel telling guests about the delay.[13]

As the games are software-based, changes can be made to the attraction's lineup of games without significant effort. In April 2010, Disney Parks announced plans to replace "Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop" with "Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts." The change took place on May 21, 2010.[14] The new game includes one of the new characters from the Toy Story 3 feature film, which was released in June 2010.[14]

In October 2014, Disney's Hollywood Studios began testing a new procedure that would require all riders to have FastPass reservations for the attraction.[15] The test, scheduled to last only a few days, eliminated the standby line that is used by visitors who have not already obtained a FastPass ticket for the ride, either because they had all been claimed or they were holding FastPasses for other attractions.[15] Some analysts suggest that this process could become more common in years to come as amusement parks attempt to keep guests from getting frustrated or waiting in extremely long lines.[15]

The attraction is being referred to as both Toy Story Midway Mania! and Toy Story Mania!. While the attraction marquees and some in-park signage read the former, the latter has been used in press releases to the news media,[16][17] used in both resorts' advertisements, and on the disneyland.com, disneyworld.com, and official promotional website for the attraction, along with attraction merchandise. Websites for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World both identify the attraction with the registered trademark "Toy Story Midway Mania!" as of September 2014.

Music for the queue area was arranged and recorded by Jennifer Hammond at Capitol Studios with a live orchestra. More than an hour of music was recorded, all based on the first two Toy Story scores composed by Randy Newman.[18]